A Sobering Blast from the Past

I had the very great pleasure of knowing Bishop Walter D. Dennis, Suffragan of New York, in his capacity as Visitor to the Brotherhood of Saint Gregory. He also had a keen eye for trends in the church, and often wrote about his prognostications. In the process of browsing through my library I came across the following from twenty years ago, which I think should rank him among the prophets. Archbishop Runcie, quoted herein, also has some apposite words for us, in light of the strained efforts towards an Anglican Covenant. Bishop Dennis writes:

If it turns out that unity with the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches is a high priority for the new Archbishop of Canterbury [George Carey], then ECUSA, as part of the Anglican Communion, may feel obliged to sell out on some of the commitments it has already made, namely, on the ordination of women, on the issue of abortion, on the issue of theological dissent and liberation theologies, and on gay rights. Clearly, many would revolt, feeling that the price of unity is too high if it requires Episcopalians to forfeit these commitments.

In the next decade, there will be much talk about authority—jurisdiction—collegiality, and ecclesiology. In using such terms, we had better be certain that in our discussions there is common definition of each term. The Anglican Church says that the four marks of Anglican authority are: The Archbishop of Canterbury, The Lambeth Conference, The Archbishops and Primates of the Anglican Communion, and the Anglican Consultative Council. As I understand it, such authority from any and all of these are consultative, but there will be heavy discussion about whether or not this consultation is for advice or for approval or, at the very least, for consensus. Also, many people will be discussing whether the Archbishop of Canterbury and Primates as well as the Anglican Consultative Council are on the same footing with the other two, and if so, how did this authority come to be? Did autonomous churches participating in all this give approval for those two additional bodies from their National Synods and/or Conventions? Speaking of his own authority and that of Lambeth, Archbishop Robert Runcie made the following statement in his opening address at Lambeth 1988:

One of the characteristics of Anglicanism is our Reformation inheritance of national or provincial autonomy. The Anglican tradition is thus opposed to centralism and encourages the thriving of variety. This is a great good. There is an important principle to be borne witness to here: that nothing should be done at a higher level than is absolutely necessary. So Anglicans have become accustomed to speak of a dispersed authority. And we are traditionally suspicious of the Lambeth Conference becoming anything other than a Conference. We may indeed wish to discuss the development of more solid structures of unity and coherence. But I for one would want their provisional character made absolutely clear; like tents in the desert, they should be capable of being easily dismantled when it is time for the Pilgrim People to move on. We have no intention of developing an alternative Papacy. We would rather continue to deal with the structures of the existing Petrine Ministry, and hopefully help in its continuing development and reform as a ministry of unity for all Christians. [The Lambeth Conference, 1988, The Truth Shall Make You Free (London: Church House Publishers, 1988).]

“A Personal Prospectus On The Episcopal Church In The 1990s,” Walter D. Dennis, in The St Luke’s Journal of Theology, December 1990, Volume XXXIV Number 1, pages 11-12

brought to you by Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Reading Rowan — Part the Second

I ended the first section of this reflection on the Archbishop of Canterbury with reference to Truth; and I would like to focus on that theme in his second section. I will do that by sharing with you some of what I said to the Archbishop at the meeting in Anaheim.

Being True to Oneself

I deferred a call to ordained ministry for a number of years in large part due to the “don’t ask/don’t tell” policy that was in place in the Diocese of New York. I felt I could not in good conscience function in such a regime — in part because of the value I place on openness, authenticity, and honesty in pastoral ministry — and I could not imagine ministering effectively under such circumstances. With a change in that policy by the newly elected bishop, and a change in attitude reflected in the House of Bishops itself at the 1991 General Convention, I knew that it was time to answer that call. Little did I know that I would end up serving in a congregation 90 percent of whose members are from parts of the Anglican Communion in which I would not be able to serve with such honesty. In part because I preach the gospel and treat my personal life as a fact on the ground, as I think any pastor should, allows most of the members of the congregation to do the same. They support me, and my partner of 29 years, in our ministry with them; and they treat him with respect they would any clergy spouse. The women of the parish make cakes for his birthday, and people always ask after him when he is away on business.

However, as with all ministry, this is not ultimately about me: it helps the gay and lesbian members of my parish to be themselves as well. They come from parts of the world where they could only do that literally at the risk of their lives and safety, and more importantly, might never cross the threshold of a church.

This is an important witness to the Gospel, in the ultimate rule and moral standard that Jesus gave us: to treat others as we would be treated, to love our neighbors as ourselves. And to do that, we must be ourselves, reveal ourselves. Being forced to live in the closet — or even choosing it as the easier way — is a fundamental violation of human dignity as well as an almost gnostic violation of the embodied truth of persons in their integrity and identity.

I am reminded that the motto of the Anglican Communion, in the words surrounding the Compass Rose: “The Truth Shall Make You Free.” One of the principles of Ubuntu, a concept which has occupied so much of our thinking and working at this session of General Convention, is that we cannot authentically be ourselves unless we are in relationship. My question is, How can we be in authentic relationships if we are not open and honest about ourselves from the outset? If we are all wearing masks, it is not a meeting of true self with true self, but a masquerade, a game of mask facing mask, reflected “in a glass darkly.” What would happen; what wave of opportunities for new ministry might break forth across the Anglican Communion if we were to take off our masks — all of us? What would happen if we were to be set free by truth for Truth? I am reminded of an eponymous line from CS Lewis’s great novel, “How can we truly know and love each other face-to-face, until we have faces?”

What is Truth?

That is what I said, more or less, to the Archbishop. And of course, any discussion of truth, either with or without a capital T, is bound to be dicey. Let me say, first of all, I reject relativism: that is, I think truth has to do with reality; though perceptions can and will differ, I think there is something that is perceived. I also accept that certain things I believe to be true cannot be proven but must be taken on faith — such as that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Savior and Redeemer of the world. I believe other truths can be demonstrated: such as that committed, life-long, monogamous same-sex relationships are not only not sinful, but capable of showing forth the grace and love of God.

While expounding the truth, or what one believes to be true, can certainly lead to division, I also believe — and this is where I differ most sharply with the Archbishop — that it is expounding the truth that leads to unity rather than being in unity leading to truth. Let me be more precise (which may also serve to lessen the gap between me and the Archbishop somewhat) — it is first of all a question of knowledge, of what we believe to be true; in short, an epistemological question. How do I know anything at all, let alone whether it is true or not? Relationship is clearly an important aspect of knowledge — I learn from others, both human others and “the other” in the form of the sensible world, as well as the ultimate Other, God, through God’s self-communication in revelation and most particularly in the person of Christ. And I refine my knowledge (that is, I learn) in communication with those others, in listening to those others, and come to know what I believe to be true in that forum and interchange and relationship. And out of this there grows a form of dynamic community. This is how truth both leads to and fosters community, truth-speaking in dialogue and listening leading to understanding, and community (as opposed to division) fostering that conversation. As Paul said to the Ephesians, “So then, putting away falsehood, let all of us speak the truth to our neighbors, for we are members of one another.” One’s truth can only be heard if there are those willing to listen. Uncertain trumpets and ears not geared to hear are equally obstacles to the task of evangelism: a task which reveals the need to speak as well as to listen, and which itself testifies to the fact that, “All have not heard,” and that the Truth must be communicated and spread. The church as a whole and in its members is, after all, “called” — it is assembled by the proclamation, and then gives rise to yet more proclamation, in the sending forth to spread the Evangelical Truth.

It seems to me that the Archbishop may be calling “unity” what I am calling relationship or community. But he appears to me to have a more limited notion of the institutional forms in which such unity might be incarnated. He wants a tighter and more regulated union as opposed to what he dismisses as a federation — and yet it seems to me that federations work very well, or at least as well as more tightly unitary entities. Benedictines and Franciscans both have a lively sense of identity and community, incarnated in very different structures. And I cannot help but note that given the Anglican Benedictine heritage, it might be good to remember the essentially autonomous nature of each abbey — living a common rule but individually governed, with only a superficial ecclesiastical structure at a higher level of management, an arch-abbot whose primary task is to check in once and a while at each abbey to see how well they are following the Rule they hold in common, but exercise as individual foundations. Sounds like the Anglican Communion to me!

My concern about “unity giving rise to truth” lies in awareness of how central control can quash the very sensibility, adaptation to local circumstance, and experimentation through which truth is often perceived, expressed, and more widely received. Monolithic entities — especially when they think they already have the truth or even are infallible — tend not to be open to correction, reform or development; they often do not listen to the corrective warnings of the child who sees the naked emperor. It is very easy for unity and unanimity to lead to self-deception; even to conspiracy and repression of the truth. Sanhedrins often are not good at accepting input, even from some of their own number.

The Elephant in the Room

Let me take up for a moment the old parable of the blind men and the elephant. In their touching and feeling they think they are engaged with different things rather than one elephantine entity: a rope, a tree, a pipe, a wall, a fan. If they remain out of communication with each other they will of course continue in this misunderstanding. But they do not need to form a “union” or “unity” in order to come to a better mind — they need communion or community: in short, to communicate with each other, and the precise form of that communication — federal, synodical, or monarchial, is irrelevant. In the world of modern networking, a distributed and open communication system may be preferred over a central administration.

Of course, they must also have some prior concept of “elephanticity,” even if it is a vague or second-hand report of heffalumps or oliphants. Thus they build not only on their individual experiences but on their own past knowledge, gained from community, of an idea of an elephant. Had they no knowledge of an elephant, who knows what strange joint vision they might construct, without any relation to the reality of which they each had only partial experience.

But, and here I may be treading over into paradox and an Anglican koan — what if it is the elephant who is blind? What if it is the elephant who has no ability to form a concept of itself? How do you tell an elephant it is an elephant? How can the elephant know the truth of its own elephant-self without the help of those blind but sensitive witnesses whose limited knowledge can only be perfected in communion, yet without which communion cannot come to be. Mustn’t the elephant construct a self-identity as a unitary entity from the evidence of the individuals reporting on its aspects? It seems to me that the Anglican Communion — indeed the whole church — is best approached as an entity that has no understanding of itself apart from the understanding of its individual members, who jointly seek understanding: truth communicated leading to unity.

To use another analogy: Consciousness itself emerges from the bicameral nature of the brain: our brain is not a unitary entity, but a consortium of independent clusters of activity, cooperating with each other to give rise to self-awareness. The church is a body with many members, contributing different faculties to the whole in organs of sense and motion.

E Pluribus Unum

It is obvious that the church does not simply spring into existence fully formed. The One is formed by the community of the Many. It grows by the addition of new members. It is, as we ourselves are, woven in secret, knit together from various components with which it is equipped, to come together and grow together in Love. Perhaps the Anglican Communion needs a refresher course in Ephesians, to understand how telling the truth can lead to unity and communion, while duplicity (the dual-minded opposite of community) can produce only an appearance of unity, the masquerade of which I spoke, a false-front facade of an edifice that is empty at its heart, a Temple forsaken by the Spirit who does not simply bestow all truth, but who leads us into it.

This is why the so-called Listening Process is so important: and it reveals, to some extent, Rowan Williams’ own trust in an emergent unity — that is, if unity were necessary for dialogue, why treat dialogue and listening as a means to encouraging unity? This gives me hope that in the actual working out of things it may be that the Archbishop is an idealist and the Vicar is a realist, but we are both dealing with the same entity under it all. That is, we are looking at the same church from two different angles; and both of us are committed to the Listening Process as a means to a better end.

Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

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Reminder about the Communion

As the Duncanian coalition of former Episcopalians and never-were Episcopalians coalesces or congeals into form in a few weeks, they appear to remain hopeful that whatever they are will be recognized as a new Province of the Anglican Communion.

This is unlikely, for two reasons.

First, one would assume that to be a member of the Anglican Communion one needs to be in communion with the Church of England. That is determined, according to English Canon Law, jointly by the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the two English Primates.

Second, to be listed on the schedule of Churches or Provinces that are part of the Anglican Consultative Council requires an affirmative vote of the Council and the assent of two-thirds of the Primates of the already existing member Churches or Provinces.

Both of these seem unlikely. In the first case, the Archbishop of Canterbury has already indicated his not wanting to depart from the long tradition of geographical integrity that has formed a part of Anglicanism since the Reformation. (See Article 37 of the Articles of Religion.) His personal "nightmare" as he mentioned in a speech some years ago, is having St Mary's Anglican Church across the street from St Joseph's Episcopal Church -- members of two different provinces of the Communion in the same location. (Previous rare exceptions on the basis of history, as in Europe, or because of cultural or linguistic differences, as in some Church of South India parishes functioning in the US, are anomalies -- and more important, are engaged in a cordial and mutual relationship; not the antipathy and lack of communion we are seeing develop with Duncan et alia.) Archbishop Rowan has to date steadfastly refused to recognize any of the extant bishops of this constellation, though he is of course quite willing to meet with them to talk. But it seems unlikely he will back a second province for disaffected Anglicans in North America.

Secondly, it is very unlikely two-thirds of the Primates would want to see such a development, as it would open the door for similar adventures in their own Provinces.

Of course, there will be a parcel of Primates who will go ahead and recognize the New Duncanian Thing, whatever the ACC or Canterbury and York say about it. There have long been signals from the Global Southerners that they think they can do without Canterbury, and they may soon have to see what that is like.

What such a blend of partial recognition (by some Primates but not enough to change the Constitution) and nonrecognition (of and by Canterbury) will lead to remains to be seen. My prognostication is a temporary division in the Anglican Communion As We Know It, as some, but not all, of the Globally Southern and Their Friends in Other Places create some boundaries between themselves and the rest of the Anglican Communion. Such a separation may not, in the long run, be a bad thing. One reality I've learned in parish life is that trying to keep unhappy people involved doesn't solve their unhappiness or promote the happiness and effectiveness of others.

Tobias Haller BSG

Thought for 1.29.08

Their teachings aren’t really docetic; they just appear to be.

Tobias Haller BSG

6. Clash of Symbols

A section of the continuing reflection on sexuality begun with Where the Division Lies.

In this essay I will examine an additional feature of marriage: its use as a metaphor or symbol for the relationship between Christ and the Church (or between God and Israel). This will include a reflection on the nature of symbolism, the extent to which reliance on such symbols can be helpful as well as misleading, what it is about marriage that serves as a symbol of these relationships, and whether that quality can be applied to same-sex relationships as well.

The ambivalent nature of symbols

Much has been said and written over the years about the nature of symbols, and their relationship to what they symbolize. Part of this discussion involves sacramental theology. It is fair to say that all sacraments are symbols, but not all symbols are sacraments. Beginning with the broader category, I accept the standard definition of a symbol as something that stands for something else. Symbols (in order to function as such) have some likeness or relationship to what they symbolize, and/or some common context which allows them to be understood as signifying something other than themselves. Thus, a king and his royal authority can be symbolized by a crown, a crest, or a throne — though none of these would be effective as symbols in a society that had neither kings, crowns, crests or thrones. The degree of relatedness between a symbol and its object — for example, between a king and his headgear — can be quite remote as long as the culture understands the connection between them. But outside of the culture in which a symbol makes symbolic sense, it may be unrecognizable, or require explanation — and thus be ineffective as a symbol.

Moreover, one symbol may have a different or even contrary meaning in another culture, and other cultures may have different symbols to represent the same object. One need not go as far afield as the Cargo Cults or the mysterious soda-bottle of The Gods Must Be Crazy to find examples of ambivalent symbolism. It is well known that hand gestures (as a form of active symbol) are just as variable as language — and a gesture that is acceptable or innocuous in one society can be obscene or offensive in another. Symbols are as often conventional (not “natural”) as they are ambiguous (not “clear.’)

A sacrament, for the purpose of this discussion, is a symbol that does more than effect a mental recognition in the observer, but actually effects a real change. Even here the “natural likeness” is not essential for a sacrament to do its work — wine is visually more like blood than bread is like flesh, yet both serve in the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. Yet in some cultures bread is an unheard of novelty rather than a daily staff of life, and wine may similarly be an exotic substance. And as one ecclesiastical wag once put it even in his Western context, “I have no difficulty in believing that the eucharistic host is the Body of Christ - but I do have difficulty recognizing it as bread.”

Picking up the royal imagery above, and recalling all of the fuss and bother concerning its misplacement in The Prince and the Pauper, the Great Seal of England in a real sense embodied a kind of sacrament — the real present power of the monarch in an efficacious manner — yet the Pauper used it to crack walnuts! The crucial note here is that even with a sacrament, its sacramental nature must be discerned. Even so-called “natural” symbols can be misunderstood apart from a cultural context, through which they are invested with efficacious power.

It is not my concern here to debate the question of whether marriage is or is not one of seven sacraments (as in the Roman Catholic teaching), but rather to reflect on the function of the marital relationship as a symbol for the relationship between Christ and the Church, or in the Hebrew Scriptures, between God and Israel. I think at the very least we can recognize that unlike the bread and wine of the Holy Eucharist, a marriage does not effect the real presence of the relationship between Christ and the Church; rather the grace of marriage (if we are to take it as sacramental) concerns the love and fidelity of the couple, which is analogous to or metaphorical of the love of Christ for the Church. This is, in short, a poetic symbol.

Finally, it must be acknowledged that symbols — even sacramental ones — have clearly defined limits. Even in the undoubted sacraments, we do not believe that all bread and wine is holy because Christ instituted that some bread and wine should be the means to experience his anamnesis. I raise this as a preventative to any suggestion of idolatry, in which the symbol comes to supplant what it symbolizes. Idolatry, as someone once said, is treating things like God and God like a thing. I would also suggest that idolatry can consist in treating things about people as if they were divine, and treating the truly divine image of God in humanity as if it were merely a thing. In the present context, it is possible both to make too much of marriage, and too little.

Marriage as ambivalent symbol

Several biblical authors use marriage as a symbol for the relationship between God and Israel, and Christ and the Church. But, as with many of the issues surrounding sexuality, the picture is far more complex than mere equivalence. Not only is marriage only one of many symbols for this relationship, but the marriage symbolism itself is ambivalent, capable of standing for both good and bad relationships between God and God’s people.

There are many earthly phenomena — and Jesus assures us (Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25, Luke 20:35) that marriage is an earthly phenomenon! — that the biblical authors use (in addition to marriage) to represent the relationship between God and Israel or Christ and the Church: monarch and people, tree and branches, father and children, shepherd and sheep, master and slaves, head and body, cornerstone and building. These symbols all depend on the cultural understanding of those to whom they speak. As noted in an earlier portion of this series of essays, the Letter to the Ephesians collects and intertwines a number of these symbols, in addition to marriage. As Paul himself recognizes, his blending of these symbols gets a bit confusing, as he spins out the various cultural themes of leadership and authority, the relationship of one to many, the nature of organic or bodily union, and love and care.

Thus the Scripture does not single out marriage as a unique symbol for the divine/human relationship — and one can carry the analogy or symbol too far — as some have suggested Paul does — as if women should literally treat their husbands as if they were God. Nor should one carry away from this symbolic usage the notion that because marriage is a symbol for the divine/human interaction it is therefore in itself divine — it remains, according to Jesus, a terrestrial phenomenon. (Luke 20:34-35) So to confuse the symbol with what it symbolizes is a category error. More than a few theologians have of late wandered off in a direction more suggestive of pagan notions of hieros gamos than is warranted by strictly orthodox theology. This includes suggestions that the relationship of a male and female somehow more perfectly embody the imago dei than either does individually. This is very shaky theological ground upon which to tread, as I noted in an earlier section of this series, for it undercuts the doctrine of the Incarnation. Much as I may disagree with him on other points (especially when under the undue influence of Aristotelian science), this is a matter on which I am concur with Aquinas. (ST I.Q93.6d)

It is also important to point out that in addition to the multiplicity of symbols for the relationship between God and people, Scripture uses all sorts of marriages as analogies for equally various divine/human interactions. While Paul uses the marital relationship to reflect the love and care of a husband for his wife (“as his own body”) in Ephesians, there are less positive images to be found elsewhere.

Perhaps most importantly, the prophetic literature uses polygamy as an image for the relationship of the one God with many worshipers, or many peoples. Thus God is portrayed as a Middle Eastern “Lord” (Ba’al — the Hebrew root for marriage is related to this word for “Lord,” explicitly contrasted at Hosea 2:18 with “my man.”). As such a Lord, God is portrayed as having more than one wife in Jeremiah 3 and Ezekiel 23. These relationships, as well as Hosea’s relationship with Gomer and the (possibly other) woman of Hosea 3, reflect the failure of God’s people in the failures of these various sexual relationships. So close is the affinity (in the Hebrew mind) of idolatry with harlotry that it is on occasion difficult to tell when the text intends literal harlotry rather than figurative. (The most frequent use of the root for harlot in the Old Testament is as symbolic of or in connection with idolatry.) We ought also to note that the putative author of the Song of Solomon was notorious for the range of his sexual interests — yet that did not prevent the Rabbis and medieval churchmen from spiritualizing the account into a rhapsody for the devoted soul’s love for God. The male in this analogy is free (as he was under Jewish law) to have multiple female partners, but each woman is to be singularly devoted to her husband. In the medieval Christian adaptations of this text, it was not found at all strange for men to cast themselves as “The Bride” of Christ.

The use of this symbol

The question is: Given that heterosexual relationships can be used as such multivalent symbols, positive or negative, single and plural, and even with a degree of sexual ambiguity, can faithful, monogamous, life-long same-sex relationships also serve in symbolic capacity — towards good? I will explore the negative imagery in later reflections on Leviticus and Romans, but will note here that the same linkage between idolatry and harlotry is made there between idolatry and some specific forms of same-sexuality. But what might a faithful, loving same-sex relationship (as opposed to the cultic activity described in Leviticus or the orgiastic in Romans) stand for as a symbol — not in the cultures of those times, but in our own?

It is clear that the prevailing biblical symbol for heterosexual relationships is intimately (!) connected with the assumption of male “headship” — thus the related analogies with master and slave, head and body, and so forth, assume a cultural notion of male authority, likened to the authority of Christ over the church. So powerful is this imagery that men become “feminine” in relation to God — as C.S. Lewis noted in his emendation to the conclusion of Goethe’s Faust.

But what of Christ — who voluntarily (and temporarily) assumes the position of a subordinate — not only in the great kenosis of the Incarnation, but in the symbolic act of the Maundy footwashing — while remaining Lord and God? When Jesus assumes the position of a servant to wash his disciples’ feet, he is also assuming the position of the woman who washed his feet with her tears. It is no accident that Jesus uses this powerful acted symbol to show his disciples the danger of assuming the position of authority over rather than assuming the position of service to. (It is perhaps ironic that in the Roman Catholic Church only men are to take part in the Maundy ritual as either foot-washers or as those whose feet are washed. How much more powerful a symbol it would be if a bishop were to wash the feet of women?)

Jesus is secure in his knowledge of himself, yet is free to set aside the role of authority to assume the role of a slave, a role played elsewhere in the passion narrative by a woman. As is obvious, in a same-sex relationship there are no stereotypical sex roles for the partners. They are, like Jesus, free to take upon themselves, in a dynamic interchange, various opportunities to love and to serve. This flexibility is no doubt one of the reasons same-sexuality is seen as a threat to entrenched systems of automatic deferral to culturally established hierarchies. Like Christianity itself, same-sexuality “turns the world upside down” (Acts 17:6) by challenging the “natural” roles assigned by culture. Same-sex couples are thus capable of being truly natural symbols for the mutuality of equals, free from the traditional roles assigned by the culture to men and women. Whether the culture sees this as a threat or a promise will depend upon what they value.

Further, as procreation is not an end for same-sex relationships, the relationship itself become the locus for its intrinsic goodness: that is, it is not dependent on the production of a result extrinsic to the relationship itself. Thus the partners do not serve as means to an end, but as ends in themselves — all being done for the good of the other, in mutual submission and love. Thus same-sex unions can be symbols of mutual dedication to the beloved, rather than as utilities geared towards some other goal or end. In this sense, same-sex unions function analogously with celibacy as signs of an eschatological end to “how things have always been” — upsetting the old dichotomies of “slave or free, male and female.”

Nothing in this is to suggest that all same-sex couples are successful in this kind of mutuality, or that a mixed-sex couple is not equally capable of it (when they are willing, like Christ, to set aside the presumptive roles granted by culture). My purpose here has been to show that, as with marriage, it is the quality of the relationship, not its mere existence, that serves as a symbol.

We find the locus of that symbol in the moral purpose of sexuality, which resides in mutual joy and respect, and the enhancement of society both between the couple and in the larger world. This is an enactment of the human moral mandate towards love and fidelity, mirroring the love and fidelity of God; and this is a moral value of which same-sex couples are capable. Procreation, on the other hand, does not have any moral value in and of itself, though it can be accompanied by the moral values I have just elucidated. But in itself it is a biological process, not unique to human beings. Procreation alone — divorced from its moral context as part of a loving human relationship — does not symbolize anything of moral value.

Thus the symbol we have before us — the union of a loving couple regardless of whether they are fertile or not — is consistent with the Gospel, with its mandate to love one’s neighbor as oneself. As this mandate can be applied to marriage (Eph 5:28) so too it can be applied to faithful, monogamous, life-long same-sex unions. Such unions can be symbolic forces for the upbuilding of society based upon this divine mandate. It is to that upbuilding that I will turn in the next section of this series of essays, as I examine the final traditional “good” of marriage.

Tobias Haller BSG

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The series continues with 7. Remedial Reading.

Further Update: This post and those that follow, expanded and supplemented with much additional material, form part of Reasonable and Holy, published by Seabury Books and available on order from Church Publishing Incorporated.

On Matthew 25:31ff

Earlier this year, Cardinal Biffi, discoursing on how the Antichrist will fill us with interest in "values" displacing the person of Christ, said, "Christianity cannot be reduced to a set of values. At the center of being a Christian is, in fact, the personal encounter with Jesus Christ."

However, the message of the latter portion of Matthew 25 is that there is no Christ without the values, and no values without the Christ. "As you have done ... you have done to me."

In this parable those who are ushered into paradise do not know that they have encountered Christ in the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned -- any more than those who failed to do so.

Moreover, Christ is here referring to "the nations" and how they treated Christ's "brothers" -- those in whom Christ is present. Thus shall the righteous who do not "know" Christ be saved -- through him -- on the basis of how they treated him. There is no salvation by gnosis; only by praxis -- for it is only in praxis that we know Christ. Love lives in loving actions, or it does not live at all.

Tobias Haller BSG

Beginnings, Ends, and Friends

a sermon first preached at the Church of the Ascension, Manhattan, on the Feast of St Aelred 2004

Paul wrote to the Philippians, “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others.” And Jesus told his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

In all the struggles with which the church has struggled during the last few decades, nothing has stirred the pot so much, raising it from a simmer to a boil, as the vexed matter of human sexuality. The problem with our vexation is that we have focused so much on the aspect of humanity which is not uniquely human — sex — and largely ignored the aspect of human nature that is (as far as we know) unique to human life: the capacity for self-giving and self-sacrificing love. This vexation and ignorance are no help in keeping our kettle from boiling over and making a mess of our ecclesiastical stove-top.

For conservatives in particular sex is almost always “the problem” — for at the same time they want to talk about what is “natural” they also want to preserve a strong distinction between humanity and the rest of nature. Thus, as archconservative Archbishop Akinola of Nigeria said concerning homosexuality just a few months ago, “Even animals don’t do such things.” Obviously the arrogant Archbishop is ignorant of the well-documented same-sex behavior among scores of animal species. But then, he and those who take his point of view aren’t interested in nature and whatever truth it might reveal to us; for they are quite content, upon being shown that animals do engage in such behavior, to turn around and accuse gays and lesbians of being “inhuman” for acting like animals — so I suppose in their view we really are neither fish nor fowl — nor human! — and shouldn’t even exist. As the wife of one of the bishops at Lambeth put it, that would be the final solution to the whole problem — “We don’t have homosexuals in Africa,” she said, “because we kill them.”

Though they might reject such genocidal homophobia, even more moderate conservatives display a similarly perverse exaltation of natural law that takes no account of real nature. For instance, as Roman Catholic moral theologians put it, Human sex is distinguished from animal sex in that only human sex leads to the birth of human beings. This surely qualifies for the theological “Duh” award of the decade. And while those who advance this triviality as if it were a helpful insight do so to preserve the dignity of human personhood — which of course only exists in human persons — in the end they are left with a dehumanized biological determinism, in which the primary good about a married couple is their fertility. This reasoning ignores the facts that not all heterosexual sex (even in the most loving of marriages) leads to the generation of new human beings — nor do we grant marriage annulments at menopause; nor are all heterosexual relationships loving; and some of those that are least loving may be the most fertile. It is not our capacity to breed — even to breed humans — that makes us human.

When one thus eliminates fertility and the creation of new human beings from the discussion, the conservative argument shifts in an enthusiastic appeal to a surmised “complementarity.” This circular argument limits the only legitimate human “other” for appropriately human relationships solely on the basis of the so-called complementarity of the sexes. In doing so it again reduces all human beings, male and female, to the status of mere prongs and holes, as if we were nothing more than the loose ends of biological extension cords, plugs and sockets designed to pass along some kind of live current, without regard to what that current is or is for. One conservative writer waxes eloquent on the imagined “fit” of male and female, which he says is like the fit of hand and glove: of course, notice who the glove is, and who the hand; women sure must get tired of being portrayed as accessories! So this supposedly noble effort to exalt human nature also ultimately undercuts human dignity.

These arguments also betray a kind of genealogical fixation— as if what most makes us human is our birth, rather than our life, as if the beginning of human life is all that counts, and not the human life lived to its human end; as if Genesis were the end of the story rather than the beginning. And it is this story which I wish to revisit and comment upon today.

I do this, in part on the basis of an appeal to our animal past, and the claims of nature, but more on the basis of the Gospel, and its supernatural claims upon our human present for our human future.

For what the Gospel shows us is the astonishing truth that love is unnatural. I’ll say it again: love is unnatural. Put another way, love doesn’t come naturally: perhaps that sounds less threatening! Love has to be urged and commanded. You have to work at it. Left to our own devices, our animal natures, the drive for life we share with all living things, we would seek only our own self-interest, only our own wants and needs, or at best the wants and needs of our species, as if human life were only meant to produce more human lives; as if we were nothing more than organic copy machines driven by our DNA to produce more DNA-producers, in some ways no better than a particularly large and noisy virus infecting the surface of the globe.

This driving energy, what the romantics used to call the “life-force,” is not love. On the contrary, “The force that through the green fuse drives the flower,” and drives the upbuilding of the universe is love’s opposite: self-interest, self-preservation, the survival of the fittest, call it what you will; this is the force that drove the rise of the universe from quarks to dust to stars to cells to animals and finally to us; it is this property of self-cohesion and self-preservation, the redundancy that what endures endures, and (as Doris Day sang) what will be will be, and that only what can reproduce will reproduce, that drove and drives the natural world. And although this leaning towards self-interest can take evil forms — Saint Augustine once said if you needed any proof of original sin, just watch a baby for a while — the tendency to self-interest is not evil in itself, even in human beings.

God, after all, created it as the means to build up the creation. God created the natural law of self-interest that alone could lead to the complexity capable of sustaining life. God provided nature with this inclination to self-preservation, and we have inherited it as part of our nature. So it is not evil in itself: as the rabbis taught, were it not for the yetzer ha-ra, the inclination towards self-interest, no man would build a house, or take a wife, or start a business.

But, as we know, when this drive predominates we get into trouble: and we’ve been troubled by it for a long time, from the moment we became aware of it. As the old, old story goes, it was the impulse to self-preservation that both drove Adam and Eve to their primal act of self-assertion, and convicted them with the knowledge of what they had done, when they fell into the knowledge of good and evil, the naked consciousness of the needy and assertive self, and knew what they had done, and what they had lost.

But they also learned what they still had. For in their fall they became aware that God had already given them something else, the good they weren’t aware of before they chose the evil, indeed before they knew the difference. God had balanced the force that launched the world at its genesis with another more personal gift.

God had imbued human hearts with love: which is not a creature, but the image of God’s self. Love is the gift which gave us the capacity to see and feel beyond our needs, beyond the needs even of our family or clan or society, the knowledge that we are not simply creatures living off each other, but creatures living for each other; that life is not based ultimately upon need but upon gift, and that life is not about the accumulation of assets and the preservation of the self or the species, but about the compassionate generosity that sacrifices even life itself for the sake of the beloved. God made us human, when to us, out of all creation, he gave this incredible energy that goes by the name of love. It is love itself, unnatural and counterintuitive love, which at its greatest sacrifices even its own life so that the beloved might live; it is love, the gift of God and the supernatural spark of the divine likeness that glows within each human soul, that makes human life truly human and most truly alive. It is love beyond price that makes life worth living, and worth giving up.

And when the time was ripe, God showed us this love in person, perfected in Jesus, who commands us to love each other the way he loved us: which is to say, not for what he could get out of us, but for what he could give us. God’s love is not based on need — God doesn’t need anything — but is rather God’s gift, stemming from God’s own nature, God who is love. The natural law of self-interest was merely God’s creature used to build up creation. But love is God’s self: and the love of God is not about transaction, but incarnation.

And when he had taught us this, we ceased being mere servants — who do as they are told but do not know why — and became friends, who do as they are commanded not in ignorance or out of fear, but out of trust, and in the knowledge of the love of God, who gave us life at our genesis, and gave us life again in the revelation of the Son of God, the beginning and the end, who became not only our savior, but our friend, who shared our life and of his great mercy allowed us to share in his.

* * *

This is the gospel truth as Jesus spoke it, the gospel truth that Saint Aelred of Rievaulx preached and lived. He did it in the setting of the monastery, among men committed to a life of common prayer and work, and most of all of unnatural love: the deeply unnatural love that Jesus commanded, the love that gives itself up and places others first, that sees other people not as means to an end (however good or exalted that end might be) but as ends in themselves, icons of Christ and images of God, and above all, as friends.

Now, let there be no doubt that whatever the experiments of his youth, in his later years we can rest assured that Aelred took the vows of celibacy seriously, both for himself and for the monks under his charge. But he also knew that human affection is a great gift, a gift that requires expression, and allowed his monks the familiarities of friendship that sterner ascetics would have found scandalous. Aelred walked that middle way between the biological determinists who saw human beings only in terms of their capacity for breeding, and the gnostic dualists who — misunderstanding the incarnation itself — wrongly thought they could escape the realities of their own embodiment. And so he allowed the signs of friendship to flourish in his monastery. And the monastery, the school of charity, became in its time, the preserver of the world. Not because it set out to do that, not as a means to an end, but because it was full of the love of God.

* * *

Today we have a great opportunity, not just to keep our ecclesiastical kettle from boiling over, but to preserve the world anew, and to teach the mystery of charity to a world hungry for love but steeped in self-interest. Our world has forgotten Sirach’s wisdom, that true friendship is beyond price and cannot be bought or sold in the marketplace.

And I firmly believe that gays and lesbians — whether they have legalized their domestic partnerships, had their unions blessed, or gone off to Canada to get married — can be teachers in this new school of charity for the church and the world, to offer a teaching as powerful as what the monastery taught in the days of Aelred.

And I don’t just mean more Queer Eye for the Straight Church — we’ve been there and done that for centuries; writing the hymns, playing and singing the music, crafting and leading the liturgies, designing the buildings and generally making the church more attractive than it would have been without us. No, what I mean is far more serious and far more challenging. I’m talking about the practice of the presence of God, who in Jesus Christ commands us to love each other as he loved us, with the love that does not abide in relationships built on quid-pro-quo or cost and benefit.

For I believe with all my heart that same-sex couples not only can show forth the great mystery of mutual love as well as different-sex couples do (or fail to do), but may well be able to do it better, and with greater freedom. Free from the shackles of biological determinism by which human cultures have falsely and conventionally come to believe that men and women are naturally and separately suited only for particular roles and destined as means to particular ends, we can emphatically declare and show forth in our lives that human beings are not roles, nor are they means to an end: whether that end be the brief spasm of sexual release or the procreation of a family, the maintenance of a home, or of a society. For as long as marriage is seen primarily for what one gets out of it: as a contract for the interchange of property or the grant of rights, for the building of a family or a home, for the maintenance of the social status quo — rather than for what goes into it: as a covenant of the mutual gift of two persons to each other for no reason other than for love, as long as we see the union of two hearts and minds primarily for its extrinsic worth rather than for its intrinsic value, it will be branded with the hallmark of commerce, rather than blessed as the sign and sacrament of generosity.

Such true freedom and mutuality are difficult when church and society still harp on what they call “appropriate” roles for men and women, when they place their trust in a nuclear family that even at its best was not the means by which God chose to enter creation when the time came to come among us as one of us. True freedom and mutuality are difficult when people talk the talk of self-sacrifice, but walk the walk of imposing sacrifice on others — and how many women have been told it is their natural lot to suffer in silence when men take advantage of them or neglect them, all in the hopes that it will make those men more “domesticated.” True mutuality is most difficult precisely when people are perceived to be unequal, complementary or incomplete.

And this is why gays and lesbians, free from any necessary or conventionally preassigned roles, can staff the school of truly mutual love and friendship, most especially love nourished by friendship.

And, my friends, the greatest irony of all is that such loving relationships, same-sex and different-sex, will save the world, just as the monasteries did through the troubled times of the middle ages, not because that is what they set out to do, not as means to that end, but because God wills it so, and has willed it so from the beginning, when he saw that it was not good to be alone. For just as only self-interest could build the world, only love can finally save and preserve the world. The rabbis were right: the yetzer ha-ra, the inclination to self, plays its role in building up the world; but love is at the heart of tikkun olam, our partnership with God our friend in preserving and bringing to perfection the great work of creation. As Saint Paul’s spiritual grandfather Rabbi Hillel, reflecting on both the inclination to self and the love of others, said, “If I am not for myself, who will be? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Christ has done us, you see, the great honor of calling us friends, friends of God in Christ and friends of each other. Friends, not servants: no longer in the dark about our friend Jesus’ plan, no longer fallen but raised to new life in him. As God is our true beginning, so too this is our true end: to honor and love God in each other and to find ourselves transformed in this honor and this love. Out of this love a broken world is pieced together, and all illusory divisions lose their capacity to divide — all of them — each and every one: and there is no more slave or free, or Jew or Gentile, or male and female, but all are one in Christ our friend. With this powerful and God-given spirit of friendship, this spirit of encouragement, this consolation and compassion, let us, at the commandment of Christ and following his example as friends together, of the same mind, having the same love, heart to heart and hand in hand, show the world, beloved, what love means. And if not now, when?

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— Tobias Stanislas Haller BSG

The Split [Still] In Our Future [?]

I wrote the following in October of 2004, in a note to the now famous House of Bishops/Deputies List. I am posting it here at this point as a “check” on how things have fared in relation to my sense at the time, just prior to the publication of the Windsor Report. I do so in part in response to the continued expressed hopes — and I have myself expressed them, most recently in an essay in Episcopal Life — that the Communion might still find a way to hold together in spite of the many tensions and disagreements we face.

The final question still stands.

The Split in our Future

Given the recent statement ("Drawing the Line") from the Anglican Communion Institute and the comments and actions of Archbishop Akinola, it appears to me that a split in the Anglican Communion is almost certainly assured. Neither Akinola nor ACI will be content with any form of Communion in which the Episcopal Church (and one assumes the Canadian as well) are allowed to be at the table in any meaningful sense of the word. A "parallel jurisdiction" in which parishes and perhaps dioceses of the "Network" would be recognized in addition to the Episcopal Church (assuming such an arrangement could be worked out) will not be satisfactory to ACI. Akinola and others have openly opined on a new "center of unity" apart from Canterbury, should he not comply with their demands for the discipline and exile of the Episcopal and Canadian Churches. Akinola has been explicit in his rejection of participation in any synod or conference in which those who consented to Bishop Robinson's election and consecration are seated, and to date has been true to his word.

I will make no prognostication on the contents of the Windsor Report, nor Canterbury's response to it, but it appears that we will either see a temporary split in the Anglican Communion (if the American and Canadian churches are exiled from full participation in the "instruments of unity" until they have undone what others believe they ought not to have done) or a permanent schism (consisting of perhaps most, but not all, of what is called the "Global South" and a number of sympathetic parishes, and perhaps dioceses, scattered through the rest of the present Communion) if those concerned do not find the solution Canterbury eventually adopts to be acceptable.

Am I misreading the signs of the times?

— Tobias S Haller BSG (October 2004)

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